The National Gallery of Art seeks a distinguished curator to head the Department of Northern European Paintings.
This position reports to the Deputy Director/Chief Curator, Curatorial Division, Department of Northern European Paintings (DCN), which is responsible for the Gallery’s acquisition, care, study, interpretation, and display of Old Master paintings from Northern Europe from the 1400s through 1750. The department head must have expertise and specialized experience as a curator of Northern Baroque paintings; also oversees staff responsible for collection research and development, installations, special exhibitions, and special projects in Northern Renaissance painting.
Duties:
Exhibitions. The incumbent proposes, organizes, and coordinates major and minor exhibitions of Northern European paintings through 1750 both from the Gallery’s holdings and from other institutions and private collections. Ensures timely and accurate maintenance of The Museum System (TMS) database entries for exhibition objects in the online collection management system.
Acquisitions. Expands and deepens the Gallery’s collections through the acquisition of works of art of the highest quality and relevance to the Gallery’s collecting policies. Cultivates close and cooperative long-term relationships with donors, collectors, scholars, and art dealers, to attract and secure single objects, collections, purchase funds, or other types of gifts to the National Gallery.
Collection management and research. Performs and/or delegates scholarly and technical work to ensure thorough, up-to-date cataloguing, safe and orderly storage, and documentation of Northern European paintings belonging to the Gallery or proposed as gifts, purchases, and loans. Sets priorities for documenting the collection; works with visual services staff and art handlers to complete new photography. Works closely with painting conservators and technicians to ensure that physical care meets the highest standards for conservation treatment, storage, and framing.
The incumbent is responsible for the permanent collection of Northern European paintings through 1750. Keeps abreast of bibliography, exhibitions, collecting, publishing, and other developments in the field of Northern European painting and in relevant research areas. The incumbent is a scholar of considerable prestige and authority within the field of the history of art, specifically Northern European paintings from the 1400s through 1750. Northern Renaissance paintings and staff fall within the department of Northern European Paintings.
This responsibility involves supervision of staff, development of project budgets, decisions on the allocation of space, time, manpower, and other resources, development and collaboration on small scale to major exhibitions and related publications and programs, print and digital publishing on the permanent collection, and collaborative responsibility for content, scope, cost effectiveness, timeliness, and public and scholarly reception of curatorial projects.
